


Let It Open You

by firefliesburningmeup



Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Fae & Fairies, Gen, M/M, SpookyVIXX October, more pre ship than ship rly, not very spooky either
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26997955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefliesburningmeup/pseuds/firefliesburningmeup
Summary: Jaehwan had thought them invincible. Or rather, he had not thought very much at all except how much fun it was with Hongbin until someone had made it not.He's not very good at rescuing, but Hongbin was special in a number of ways.
Relationships: Lee Hongbin/Lee Jaehwan | Ken
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	Let It Open You

**Author's Note:**

> posts my spooktober fill in *checks calendar* mid october
> 
> everything here is partially zee's fault, as it always is

Jaehwan doesn’t know how they’ve done it- it’s hard to think very clearly about anything but the way the noose had slipped so easily around Hongbin’s neck and how Hongbin had laughed before it had petered off, turning to frantic struggle, to screaming as it tightened, drawing blood as he’s dragged by it. Jaehwan had never seen him trapped in his flesh form, the entity happy to switch between his forms at will. It was very, very difficult to remember the way Hongbin had brightly gloated that Jaehwan could never touch him, burned away by the first time Jaehwan had seen Hongbin’s face twist in fear and pain. He had been panicked as he clawed at the noose, even as his legs gave out under him as he’s dragged away by Huntsmen on their great antelopes. 

Jaehwan had screamed his name back in terror, his hands reaching for Hongbin’s and gets a warning arrow graze his cheek. He ignores it, catching the end of Hongin’s sleeve as the other boy struggles against the noose pulling at him before another arrow flies and strikes true. Jaehwan howls as the arrow pushes him meters away, pinning him against a tree. _Hongbin, Hongbin, Hongbin,_ he cries out, his fingers still curled around the phantom silk of Hongbin’s sleeve. The one dragging through the mud as Hongbin claws at the loose earth for any kind of purchase. 

And Jaehwan was helpless. Pinned by a single arrow as he watched Hongbin scream his name like a frightened animal. The animal they probably thought of him, he thinks, and the fury it instills in him would surprise him if his shoulder didn’t fucking burn like hellfire. He gnashes his teeth. Fuck those assholes. Fuck them for fucking shooting him, fuck them for taking Hongbin, fuck their stupid too tall antelopes- Jaehwan screams in frustration. His head thunks against the tree as silence answers him. What now?

Free. He had to get free first. He claws at the arrow in his shoulder, whimpering as his hands give it a tug and the pain washes anew. Still, it doesn't break or tug free from where it's embedded through him and into the bark. It takes four tries- four breathtakingly painful tries before the arrow snaps between his hands and splinters into nothingness as the magic holding it together disappears.

Jaehwan falls to his knees, panting in pain as he lifts his shaking hands to heal away the fucking hole in his body. He takes in a shaky breath as the pain fades away, leaving only the agony in his heart. There’s nothing to distract him- the forest is piercingly empty after the Hunt had trampled through it, screaming and laughing. They had thought it a passing cacophony. Until it got louder. And louder. Loud enough that the humans Jaehwan lured deep into the green woods had scrambled away (getting lost probably- bad form to trust random music in a forest). Hongbin had been whispering to him, a bright gleam in his eyes when the silken thread had wrapped around his neck and _yanked_. 

Jaehwan slowly gets to his feet, still shaken but slowly pulling himself together as he focused on Hongbin. His wings unfurl from nothingness, bright and shimmering and leaving sparkling dust as he flies towards the ring they had come from. From one moment to the next, he disappears into dust. Leaving behind the same eerie silence that Hongbin had delighted in. 

Alright. Planning time. 

Jaehwan’s no good at plans. Like, really shit at them, as Hongbin would describe it. 

Especially the planning part and the doing the plan part. But the Hunt were, for all their viciousness, used to only fighting their prey, each other, and the occasional random human. So sneaking into their hunting lodge after a bunch of them had thundered off hadn’t been so difficult. A good thing considering midway through frantically trying to come with a good plan, the anxiety of leaving Hongbin alone had gotten to him. As Hongbin also said, he tended to act before he thinks, if he ever thinks at all. 

Which would be pretty unfair of Hongbin now, Jaehwan thinks sulkily. The Hunt were very proud of their stupid trophies. Jaehwan was being smart in deciding not to risk it. His gut just agreed with him.

Every knows where the Hunt's lodge was. Lodge was their word for it, but these days it looked like many other grand citadels, complete with the same drunken parties and overly fanciful architecture that made it very easy to find a crack to slip through if one had the mind for it. He flutters around the towers, searching for a dark spot to enter through. Jaehwan flaps around uselessly before he finally finds one that seems empty. His fingers scramble for the window sill as his wings beat furiously to keep him hovering in place. He finally tumbles in, wings disappearing as he’s finally back on solid ground. Vaguely, he knows they keep their prizes underground, the rooms above kept clean and well decorated for their revelries. The guess is confirmed as he sneaks down empty hallways, passing quiet doors and hallways lit only by panes of silvery moonlight. Because it is still and peaceful, and yet Jaehwan can hear dull echoes as he slips deeper and deeper down cold stone stairs. 

It’s not a prison. If you think cold and dank and musty, the space below the lodge can barely be called that. The ceilings are high and vaulted, lit by crystals woven in mesmerizing patterns. And of course, the well-lit trophy wall. Upstairs were all the grand finds- great sun eating reptiles and fire breathing dragons or splayed wings with feathers as long as Jaehwan is tall. But here, downstairs, they show the full breadth of their collection. Thousands of trophies litter the area, from the similarly pretty but less grand finds to the seemingly mundane. Small gleaming horns, rows upon rows of delicately pinned wings, a large hairy leg here, a gleaming rabbit’s foot there, all in a massive wall at the end of a grand hallway. 

As Jaehwan hides behind some stuffed monstrosity, this hallway doesn't lead to rooms for some horny bastard to tumble into. Instead, there are cells. Rows upon rows of them. These are uglier- rough and heavy with magic with all colors of blood staining them. And there. Hongbin.

Jaehwan nearly gasps, gnawing at his lip as he forces himself not to rush in the moment he sees him. He watches instead, clutching at his dagger and letting the feeling of his fingers curling around the leather wrapped hilt ground him as he watches Hongbin snarl whenever one of the fae tries to touch him. A part of Jaehwan had thought he’d find Hongbin swooning or unconscious or something- maybe that would’ve been better than seeing him like this. He’s biting back but it looks rote almost. There’s a heaviness to his shoulders and while his eyes are defiant they’re tired too. The blood in the cell tells a story. His body is marked by his blackish blood and the smear of his People’s bright blood here and there are all hidden by the dark wounds Jaehwan can see. Jaehwan trembles. He’s never seen Hongbin _bleed_ so much. Not that the Huntsmen care- one has a pike, and she uses it to prod Hongbin, showing him off to her companion. Jaehwan watches as she prods him- harder this time. Hard enough that it slices through Hongbin’s clothes and into pale skin that’s rapidly swallowed by the blood the squirts out. He can see Hongbin sway. He can see the way Hongbin’s throat bobs as he keens in pain, hunching over himself as if it would help. 

Jaehwan sees again, with his useless eyes and his useless hands as Hongbin suffers. 

It’s not so different from how him and Hongbin have played with their own prey. Jaehwan loathed it. As if the two were even remotely comparable. As if the burning in Jaehwan’s core that Hongbin had slowly stoked with his impish laughter and steady presence compared even slightly to the brief flicker of amusement felt by those beasts when they tortured his beloved. His breath rattles in his chest as the same helpless fury in that dark forest rises up again. Except this time, there is no arrow. There is only him, a dagger and two of the Fair Folk drunk on good ale and violence. 

“Fuck it,” Jaehwan whispers to himself. 

“Ngh-Jaehwan?” Hongbin croaks out as Jaehwan rushes in through the cell door. Jaehwan cradles Hongbin’s face, a wordless cry of relief as he presses his forehead against Hongbin’s. “Yes, fuck, I’m here Binnie, I’m here,” he gasps out, his hand still gripping his bloody blade. It sounds like a reassurance, not for Hongbin but for himself. A childish plea for forgiveness. 

“No shit,” Hongbin rasps out like a benediction. There he is, the same Hongbin who laughed at him for tripping down the stairs. There he is the same Hongbin, who had whispered tricks to play in his pointy ears. Here he is, here he is, Jaehwan repeats to himself, lips moving soundlessly as his legs turn to jelly. Hongbin seems to know the weight of his relief, because he presses back against him weakly in comfort. Jaehwan chokes back a cry. Even now, Hongbin was there for him. He swallows painfully, pulling away. “Let me set you free,” Jaehwan says, voice nearly cracking as he grips the cuffs around Hongbin’s slim wrists, clumsily surging the locks through with magic. Jaehwan can’t be fucked with his control now and it works anyway, the manacles falling to the floor with a clatter. 

“Come, come,” Jaehwan says, tugging (gently, as gentle as he can be right now) at Hongbin. “We have to go.”

Hongbin shakes his head and Jaehwan just stares at him in blank confusion. Hongbin tilts his head towards the floor. “Look down, Jaehwan,” Hongbin sighs, the frustration in his voice tightly leashed. Jaehwan stares at the floor, uncomprehending until his eye starts fitting together what he thought were scratches and shadows. 

They were marks. Some of them familiar from childhood lessons. Trapping. Constraining. Binding. A standard looking circle except for one part. In the place a name belongs, sigils have been carved instead, ones that made Jaehwan’s head swim just from looking at them. The curve of them and the way they looped back into each other slipped through his mind like silvery fish, eluding him everytime he thinks he's grasped them. Jaehwan blinks. The pieces were there. Laid out in a brutishly efficient contract but he still can't quite put them together.

“But,” Jaehwan starts. Stops. “Your name is Hongbin. I gave you that name,” he says petulantly. Distantly, Jaehwan recognizes this maybe isn’t the best time for it. But names were special things. Doubly so to the fae, who dealt only in truths. But it was hard to distill the world into singular truths- what was real? What isn’t? An easy thing to decide when it came to flinging fireballs or flying, as long as you knew what truths lie in the middle of things. Names were powerful like that, a strong enough truth that distilled things into a singular sound. 

Names were powerful things. And Jaehwan had been a lonely boy once, too loud for someone left all alone behind wrought gates. And lonely people tend to do terrible things, because nothing seemed as terrible as what laid beneath their breast. 

So when Jaehwan found this little shadow of a boy in his garden with no name and a funny smile, Jaehwan had Named him. He did it in the whisper of a child who knew he ought not do something but wanted to do so anyway. Jaehwan had Named him and for once, someone was his. And Jaehwan had clung to that because nobody and nothing else had filled in the silence left after his words. It was selfish but Hongbin was happy enough, so that was fine right? 

Hongbin smiles weakly at him. The name Jaehwan gave him tugged something in him- it was a name, true. It was true now. But not the truest. “What monster is born with a human name?” Hongbin asks, acerbic. Gentle, if one spoke Hongbin’s language as well as Jaehwan did. 

“I- well. Obviously!” Jaehwan splutters inelegantly. Hongbin's word makes sense, pointed out like that. It made sense _now_. But they did little to explain the way Hongbin had followed through the years. Yet despite the confusion that left him dizzy, Jaehwan's hands are still wrapped around Hongbin’s wrist and all Hongbin had done in response was to twist in his grip to hold Jaehwan’s just as tightly. Wrapped around those familiar bones, Jaehwan feels shaken. Yet not. 

Name or no name, Hongbin had been a truth that Jaehwan relied on for years. A truth at the center of him, as sure as his own name. Hongbin was his. It was always him. 

There’s still something in the sigils at their feet though. Some strangeness that Jaehwan, for all his own kind of fey strangeness, could not grasp. “So tell me then,” he whispers to Hongbin. 

_(“So tell me.”)_

“Give me your name.”

_(“Who are you?”)_

This time, there’s no hesitation. No confusion this time as Hongbin leans into Jaehwan’s ear, his mind brushing against Jaehwan’s, subtly alien yet the shape of it rings familiar. He whispers a sound. Or is it an idea? The sound and feel of it is offered to him through thought and sound, and Jaehwan’s lips part in an _oh_ of sudden understanding. 

The Fair Folk are very good with names. No matter how strange or difficult to think about, they always know what is true. And in a way, Jaehwan was already very, very familiar with this one. 

Suddenly, the sigils make sense. A crude approximation of the strange loveliness of Hongbin’s name, made without the aid of anyone really familiar with the language of it. Easy to write over, Jaehwan’s tongue twisting impossibly to speak over it. _Come with me_ he says, as he steps out of the cell. 

Hongbin follows. 

Back upstairs. Past the drunken, snoring bodies that are taken care off with disappointing ease. The still drunk, less asleep bodies that Hongbin had delighted in taking care of. Out the doors, and far, far away. 

Long ago, a young Jaehwan had whispered a name to a little boy in his bed, covers pulled over them to make their own secret place. A complicated name. Hongbin for short. They’re older now, just as foolish about each other as Jaehwan whispers a name to him again. A complicated one. Jaehwan for short. 

**Author's Note:**

>  _"Let yourself be gutted. Let it open you. Start there."_  
>  \- Cheryl Strayed
> 
> i hope you liked it! these two have been puttering around my brain for a long time. i wrote this in one go, unedited because thats just me as a person
> 
> In case it's confusing-  
> Jaehwan is fae, the Fair Folk, however you prefer. I leaned more into the "always tells the truth" bit this time but maybe I'll talk more about the other stuff later. The Hunt is the Wild Hunt  
> Hongbin is heavily borrowed from Dead by Daylight's Entity (because for the entity memes) who puts on his flesh boy suit so jaehwan isn't so lonely. 
> 
> theyre in love. they are not aware of this. 
> 
> (please leave me kudos & comments, id greatly appreciate it)


End file.
